Red, White, & Blue Swirl Bundt Cake

Can you even believe it’s time for red, white, and blue treats already? The 4th of July is right around the corner, so naturally, we’re turning regular treats into patriotic ones, because then they taste better, right??

I remember this time last year vividly. We had a less-than-two-weeks-old screamy baby, and I was so glad to have an hour to myself in the early hours of the morning where I turned regular Rice Krispies Treats into a fruity berry version to share in time for the holiday season. This year, throwing this patriotic treat together involved much less screaming, but it was definitely dotted with moving a mobile toddler (TODDLER?!) away from cords and volume buttons, snapping pictures after bedtime (thank goodness for that summer evening light!), and cleaning up stray sprinkles as quickly as possible.

If you’ve been around these parts this year, you’ll know I’m doing a Cake of The Month feature every month, so welcome to installment #6! We’re halfway done. That means halfway to Christmas and this fine celebration, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We still have hotdogs to eat, fireworks to light, and grilling to do!

The nice part about this red, white, and blue swirled bundt cake is we’ve been here before. It’s actually my white layer cake recipe, but in a bundt pan. And obviously with some red and blue business going on. I won’t talk too much about how this recipe came to be since you can read all about it in this post, but instead, we will focus on exactly how you get your batter colored the right color and swirled in your finished cake so perfectly.

To get beautifully colored swirls in your cake, you’re going to start the cake batter like you normally would. You’ll stop right at the point of putting the batter into the pans to bake, but you’ll remove some batter to dye red and blue. Pour out about half of the batter to dye, putting half of that into one bowl and the other half in another bowl, so you’ll have about 1/4 of the batter in each bowl, ready to become colorful. Make sense? Half stays white, half gets colored. If you want to make this cake different colors for another occasion (say, Halloween, with green, purple, and orange), same idea: half stays white, half gets colored. The other half will just split into 3 bowls. You following?!

You can certainly use liquid food coloring, but I have always preferred gel colors. My favorite are Americolor. I prefer gel because the colors are more concentrated and vibrant, and the batter doesn’t get watered down by lots of liquid drops.

Once you have your red and blue batters, get to the creativity!

I started by putting a few dollops of colored batter in the bottom of the bundt pan. Just a few. Next up, a light layer of white. The key here is to be gentle and try not to disturb the colored dollops. In recipes where the idea is to swirl (like peanut butter ripple ice cream), mixing of colors/batters is encouraged. Here? No. With two colors of batter, you run the risk of getting purple swirls, which would be pretty, but not what we want here. Because of the nature of how batter bakes, the dollops almost swirl themselves. Neat, huh? I did about 3 layers of color and white batter, not worrying much about dollops peeking through or not getting covered completely. I did, however, try to avoid putting a big dollop of red batter on top of another red dollop. Big dollops, small dollops– whatever! Get creative.

After your bundt cake is fully baked, you’ll want to flip it out of the pan as soon as you can. Let it cool for about 10 minutes, put a plate or your serving platter on top of the pan, then flip while using oven mitts. You’ll let the cake cool completely upside down (right side up?!) on the platter. This will prevent the top of the bundt sticking to the pan and destroying the pretty grooves. Of course, if you’re covering it with frosting like I did, that doesn’t really matter much, but it’s good practice for bundt cake baking.

I’ll tell you what, folks… My taste testers were blown away by this, which is funny, considering it’s just my white cake with swirly colors. I took it to my company summer picnic and I took nothing home but stray sprinkles on a plate. Something about the texture of this bundt cake was, admittedly, bringing me back for more. I added an extra teaspoon of baking powder to the original recipe (thanks for the tip, Bundt Cake Queen!) to account for the taller nature of the bundt pan, but perhaps that little bit of lift was enough to take this amazing cake to an even higher level of amazing?? Who knows? Either way, this easy yet impressive cake is a must this 4th of July. MUST!!

Here’s to America, despite the weird year it’s been for all of us, I think we can all agree on one thing– ALWAYS YES TO CAKE.

VANILLA BUTTERCREAM

Instructions

CAKE

Place oven rack on the middle setting and preheat the oven to 350ºF. Generously grease and flour (or use Wilton's Cake Release) a 10" bundt pan.

In a large bowl with a handheld mixer or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, cornstarch, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Blend ingredients together on low until completely combined, about 1 minute. Add the room temperature butter and beat mixture on low speed until it resembles sand. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula and mix again on low for a few seconds until thoroughly combined.

Combine the heavy cream, egg whites, and vanilla extract in a large container with a spout (like a 2-cup glass measuring cup) and mix gently with a fork until blended. With the mixer speed on medium-low, add half of the milk mixture (about 1 cup) to the crumb mixture and mix until blended. Add the remaining milk mixture to the batter and beat again on medium-low until everything is incorporated. Turn the mixer off, scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula, and increase mixer speed to medium. Beat the batter for about 30 seconds until batter is smooth.

Pour about 1/4 of the batter into one small bowl, and another 1/4 of the batter into another small bowl (these are the portions you will color). You should be left without about half of the batter in your mixing bowl. Set that aside.

Add a bit of red food coloring to one of the small bowls, stir, and add more coloring until it is to your liking. Repeat with the second bowl and the blue coloring. Using a spoon or spatula, add a few dollops of each color batter to the bottom of the bundt pan. Pour about 1/3 of the white batter over the dollops. Repeat again until you run out of batter. Tap the bundt pan gently on the counter to allow layers to settle, then bake for 38-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes on a wire cooling rack. Using oven mitts, carefully flip the bundt cake onto your serving dish/platter. To do this: flip the serving dish/platter over and place on top of the cooling bundt pan. Flip everything over and allow cake to cool completely in the pan, sitting on the serving dish. When cake is completely cool, lift pan off of the cake.

VANILLA BUTTERCREAM

In a large bowl with a handheld mixer, or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes.

With the mixer on low, add in the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk or cream. Increase mixer speed to medium and beat until completely smooth, about 3 minutes. If frosting is too stiff, add more milk. If it is too thin, add more powdered sugar. Add salt to taste.

Decorate cake as desired. Cake stays fresh covered at room temperature for up to 4 days. Cake may be covered and refrigerated for up to 7 days. Cake freezes well, up to 2 months. Wrap in plastic wrap, then in foil, then place in a large freezer bag or freezer-safe container. Thaw in the fridge overnight.

Notes

^It is imperative to use room temperature ingredients in this recipe. Allow ingredients to sit out at room temperature at least 45 minutes before beginning.

*I strongly encourage using cream in this recipe. It keeps the crumb moist and dense and adds a creaminess to the overall texture of the cake.

Hello! I’d like to make this cake for Saturday (it’s currently Thursday) and I’ll be traveling to my destination on Friday. How far ahead can it be made? Will it be good if I make it today or should I wait and whip it up once I get there? Thanks!

Hey, Allison! That would be totally fine to make it today. Keep it in the fridge, covered tightly. I would even put it on a plate and pop the pan back on top of it. Just save putting the frosting on top until Saturday, if you can. If you can’t, just wrap it tightly and keep it in the fridge like that.

I make a version of this cake 3-5 times a year now. Every. Single. Birthday! Easter, and whatever random community events we have. I just change the colors to whatever works for that child (3 under 6) or occasion and do two round layers for birthday’s! It’s delicious every single time! Even that time when I was out of cornstarch… and that time where I was running behind (ahem, 3 kids) and nothing was at room temp. I’m not saying I recommend staying from the directions… but I’m so thankful that we still ended up with a gorgeous and delicious cake when I did! Thank you so much for this recipe- it’s become a treasure in our home!

Hahaha, I TOTALLY understand those times, Jillian! This cake is definitely flexible, but those specific directions just yield the BEST results. I’m so glad you love this cake so much and that you change up the colors for your occasion!